Homehero is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kaleazy/theres-no-magic-in-venture-backed-home-care-8f5389528279 <comment><USER2> So the gist is laws were upheld protecting homecare givers - minimum wage and overtime pay - and new mandated increased minimum wage, ultimately led to their decision to abandon their supposedly successful model. Their own internal "surveys", if we should even consider that, supposedly indicate these laws are not good for homecare.

Maybe their business model just depended on exploiting cheap labor?

Or maybe they went the way of Homejoy and are saving face, as many speculated, former employees coming forward, etc. with Homejoy that their customer retention was just really bad.

<comment><USER3> > Maybe their business model just depended on exploiting cheap labor?

How do you say that they were exploting cheap labor, when they claim that their business model enabled them to pay their caregivers 25% higher than industry average.

> The 1099 independent contractor model, below, is very attractive as it > removes excess cost and restrictions for employers. We were charging clients > 30–40% less than industry average, and we were paying caregivers 25% higher > than industry average. Both sides were winning.

To me, it looks more like the Union Bosses at SEIU made a calculated -- and eventually successful - move to pull strings and get laws passed that would stifle HomeHero as they seem to be disrupting that Industry the same way Uber or AirBnB distrupted a different industry.

> On Oct 15th 2015, the entire home care industry got rocked. The Department > of Labor upheld a federal ruling stating that over 2 million home care > workers would qualify for the Fair Labor Standards Act —essentially > requiring all home care workers to be treated as W-2 employees and receive > overtime benefits. This was viewed as a huge win by the controversial and > outspoken labor union SEIU, as well as the "Fight for $15" crowd in > California.

Not saying it's the right (or ethical) thing to do, but if they'd had the funds, they should've gotten in front of that Act (before it got signed into law) and poured resources -- lobbyists, ads -- into killing it. They could've also asked the people receiving the service to write to their reps / senators / congressmen stating the Bill / Act would increase costs to them.

Just like Uber and Lyft have done so in the past.

Last year, when state officials tried to roll out a regulation the company didn't like, Uber emailed their drivers and customers telling them to oppose it. The response flooded regulators' inboxes and the state backed down.

> In just the last month, the ride-hailing giants have secured a string of > victories at the Capitol, killing or delaying legislation and regulations > they didn't like and shepherding in new rules favorable to the industry.

SourceL [http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-why-uber-is- winni...](http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-why-uber-is-winning-in- california-20160507-snap-htmlstory.html)

<comment><USER4> > How do you say that they were exploiting cheap labor, when they claim that > their business model enabled them to pay their caregivers 25% higher than > industry average.

When I read this figure I wondered if they're looking at it on a pre-tax basis. 1099 workers have to pay employment taxes that W-2 workers do not shoulder (because they are paid by the employer). This wouldn't add up to 25% — probably more like 15%. So while I don't think they were "exploiting cheap labor", I think it's possible that the win-win scenario they claim wasn't as big a win for workers as it might seem.

<comment><USER5> 1099 workers also get to expense a lot more stuff from their taxes than employees (I think... please correct me if I'm wrong).

<comment><USER3> > 1099 workers also get to expense a lot more stuff from their taxes than > employees

Correct. As of 2012, deductible expenses can include health insurance premiums, office supplies, auto and travel expenses, a portion of home rent or mortgage payments, and a portion of utility costs.

IANAL/B yes, the HomeHero 1099 caregivers could've reduced their taxable income by rightfully claiming auto and travel expenses to and from the client, and if they were using their residence to do extra work for client (like research or preparing food etc, then they can also deduct business / home- office expenses.

Related Reading: [https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Self- Employme...](https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Self-Employment- Taxes/Top-Tax-Write-offs-for-the-Self-Employed-/INF18049.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _On Oct 15th 2015, the entire home care industry got rocked. The Department of Labor upheld a federal ruling stating that over 2 million home care workers would qualify for the Fair Labor Standards Act —essentially requiring all home care workers to be treated as W-2 employees and receive overtime benefits._

I took a few minutes to read _Home Care v. Weil_ and I don't think this is at all an accurate summary.

What the DC circuit found (and SCOTUS, in denying cert, allowed to stand) is that _third party employers_ of home-health workers are required to provide overtime and minimum wage protections for home health workers.

<comment><USER7> So you can't be the exploitative middleman, but home care workers are still able to work directly for the people in their care, at a rate they both agree on? Seems reasonable to me, provided it doesn't also mean there can't be any kind of marketplace or clearing house that connects workers with people who would like to employ them.

<comment><USER8> Depends on how hands-on the marketplace is. Something that works like Craigslist is probably fine, something that works like Uber probably isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think he misses the point entirely.

His business only worked if the country continued to insist that the vulnerable (elderly) can subsists off the backs of the disenfranchised and disadvantaged (home health care workers). Even if he won, the world would be a significantly worse place for it.

The problem is that people are entering their later years without an appropriate safety net. Demanding that a subset of Americans work in poor conditions or at a discounted rate to cover the gap isn't OK.

<comment><USER10> > Demanding that a subset of Americans work in poor conditions or at a > discounted rate to cover the gap isn't OK

No one was demanding anything. Home care workers were working by mutual agreement with their respective employers. "The country" had nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER11> > Home care workers were working by mutual agreement with their respective > employers. "The country" had nothing to do with it.

"The country" can force someone into accepting the "best" bad deal ("by mutual agreement") if all the other options are worse. It's an error to stop your analysis at the agreement without considering the full context in which it was made.

<comment><USER12> That's true, but it casts the solution here in a weird light. If all of someone's options are bad, removing one of them doesn't help anything.

In the minimum wage debate in general, the response is that demand for workers is kind of inelastic, and that removing low wage jobs will create higher wage jobs. At least in this specific case, it doesn't sound like that is happening? (Though the details matter a lot, and I don't know them.)

<comment><USER10> What really seems to be happening is the jobs continue to exist as before, but they are driven under the table which is certainly not where we want most people to be working if we truly care about workers' rights. Keep in mind the true incentive of unions like the SEIU which pushed for this change is to improve the wages of _their_ members, even if it comes at the expense of other workers who are 1) willing to work for less, 2) not represented in the union for whatever reason 3) economic progress/productivity on the whole

<comment><USER11> > Keep in mind the true incentive of unions like the SEIU which pushed for > this change is to improve the wages of their members, even if it comes at > the expense of other workers who are 1) willing to work for less

This kind of rhetoric is classic divide-and-conquer, which _oddly_ seems to be applied more to labor than employers. I've never heard a company criticized for working in its own best interest and not for the benefit of all employers.

And honestly, I have the least concern for protecting the labor right to work- for-less than the other guy, especially if "less" is a pittance with no benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If your company was only viable if you could get away with not paying people overtime rates when they work overtime hours, then your company was never viable.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. Simply not paying people living wages is not a disruptive new idea, it's just exploiting your workers to provide a lower cost to your customers. You're exactly the same sort of scum you're attempting to unseat.

Bring on the downvotes! You can call it whatever you want, "side hustles", "the gig economy", whatever new age bullshit the VC companies are using this week but it's the same thing: ducking labor laws to pay less than living wages to people to do work you don't want to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the biggest problem here, above anything else, is my first reaction: "Who the hell is Homehero, and why should I care?"

Also: LOL at "The 1099 independent contractor model, below, is very attractive as it removes excess cost and restrictions for employers." Yes, it is very awesome when you get people to perform full-time labor for you without having to worry about giving them insurance or benefits or anything like that!

<comment><USER16> Obviously, a startup. And just because you're not in their target market, and so probably wouldn't have heard of them, doesn't mean there isn't something to learn here.

<comment><USER15> Oh, there's plenty to learn. I just think that agnostic of the labor and regulatory issue he's describing, a much bigger problem was that we're inside of an incredibly niche, startup-focused community here on HN and the overwhelming response so far is "Who the hell are these guys, and why should I care?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I feel like the way they told their story (being vague about the challenge until halfway down the page) implies that they realize the reason they failed is because they were exploiting contract workers just like Uber does. Good riddance to another "disruptive" company full of "geniuses" making money by throwing some javascript on top of an exploitative labor model.

</comment><comment><USER18> I was part of a team that was attempting to compete with HomeHero, but based out of Texas. I'm curious why they didn't attempt a geographic pivot if California regulations were truly their main barrier to success in the home healthcare market.

<comment><USER19> Was going to say, this whole post talks about a challenging regulatory environment in California, and is clearly meant as a "told you so" reaction. However, I see no reason this had to be bound to CA.

<comment><USER20> You mean other places exist outside the bay area????

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > We launched with a workforce of vetted independent contractor (1099) > caregivers, who we endearingly referred to as "Heroes".

How often are pompous titles like that just cheap window-dressing meant to hide some kind of underlying smelly ugliness? I'm getting really skeptical whenever I come across them.

What are some other examples? I know I've seen stuff like this before, but the only other ones I can think of are title/job descriptions like "guru" or "ninja," which are similar but don't quite cover the same space.

<comment><USER21> Apple 'Genius' definitely falls in that category.

<comment><USER22> Subway's "Sandwich Artist"? They're following a formula for assembling a pretty basic roll, and often taking instruction from the other side of the counter. Sounds about as far from artistry as you can get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Important to note that we're only getting one side of the story here. It would be nice to get a second opinion, ideally from an actual carer, on the DoL ruling that killed HomeHero's business model. For example, if this ruling (which forced a transition to a W-2 employee model away from 1099) actually ended up getting health insurance to a lot more employees, that could be considered a good thing to some. Of course, that ignores the fact that the regulation did probably end up putting a lot of home carers out of over-the- table work, as Kyle noted.

</comment><comment><USER24> After the mandated increase in pay and W2 obligation, a lot of people just shuttered their home care businesses. Now the employer is no longer in business, and the employees are left jobless.

Would there be similar results if the minimum wage increased for low-skill jobs? McDonalds employees want $X, but McDonalds can just build those autonomous cashiers which are already all over the place here in Miami. Suddenly no more jobs for people.

<comment><USER25> Once, when I was in Seattle, I witnessed a volunteer cajoling a McDonald's employee to sign up for her Fight for 15 campaign. I was going to tell the fellow that he was about to commit economic suicide, but I let it go.

Fast forward a year, and that McDonald's is now a hole in the ground and a new fancy high rise is going up in its place.

If the cost of an activity exceeds its value, that activity will cease. Of course, if the cost can be passed on it will be passed on. So, if you raised the minimum wage to $1M per hour, a hamburger would cost $300k (or more).

<comment><USER26> The average McDonald's makes $1.75 million per year in profit for the owner and the average payroll and payroll expenses are in the neighborhood of $500k (according to their franchise information).

Let's assume all of them are making minimum wage, so $15 per hour would basically double it (the average wage is almost definitely higher than $7.50 considering minimum wage in some area).

Now the average profit per year for a McDonalds owner is $1.25 million per year. You think the activity is going to cease?

Of course it may make automation about $500k more appealing, but automation was happening one way or another.

<comment><USER25> To simplify things, let's say the McDonald's owner owns the property. If his profit drops to $1.25 million per year, but he can sell the property and invest the proceeds so that he earns $1.3 million per year, then the activity will cease. Even if a McDonald's is profitable, something else may be even more attractive when costs change.

<comment><USER26> The average cost to start a McDonald's is around $1 million.

The rate of return is absurd.

Most franchise owners also become experts running at running a restaurant franchise making them even less likely to move into something else. McDonalds isn't going anywhere when minimum wage goes up.

Your point would have been better if you'd been talking about someone working at a small struggling restaurant that was barley able to stay open.

Even then, you're completely ignoring the effect that moving money from the wealthy to low income earners will have on the economy (read up on velocity of money). There are definitely more efficient ways to do this, but you can't just ignore the effect and state that _minimum wage = fewer jobs_.

<comment><USER25> I never said that minimum wage = fewer jobs in all contexts. It will definitely destroy certain employment opportunities in certain circumstances. I suppose I would consider it an accelerant for automation.

<comment><USER26> You implied that a minimum wage of $15 would eliminate fast food jobs. The numbers indicate that it won't.

>It will definitely destroy certain employment opportunities in certain circumstances.

Sure and a 0.1% sales tax will destroy certain employment opportunities in certain circumstances.

The key is to find a balance. I'd prefer a universal basic income or an increase in the EITC. But I think fighting for a $15 minimum wage that won't kick in until 2024 at the earliest, and will probably be negotiated down to $12, is better than what we have now.

$15 in 2024 will be about $12.50 in 2016 dollars based on projected inflation by the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I followed homehero and some of its competitors movements for a bit. Home care is not an easy business, and there are many local vendors in any given community. There's always this argument as to whether going "full stack" (providing the workers, technology - the full solution) is a better option in healthcare than just providing a software product for clients to start using. The argument Kyle makes, that is worth noting, is that existing homecare agencies started deploying software more readily than homehero may have anticipated.

Thay being said, some of the messaging and marketing may have been off as well. I found it odd when they started advertising their workers as W2 heros, or something to that effect.

</comment><comment><USER28> Can anyone name one of these "gig-economy" startups that treats their contract workers fairly?

</comment><comment><USER29> So, they have a problem paying $15/hour while claiming to pay better than average and talking about how harmful this was to live-in caregivers. I am reminded of the recent story on HN about a family that had a slave.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14350059](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14350059)

These guys are too busy trying to figure out how to get rich to take care of their grandmother themselves. Instead, they want to pay people a pittance to do it for them and then whine about how hard it is to find good care givers.

As I said in the discussion about "My Family's Slave," it tends to not work well to pay people to care. That tends to result in paying people to _pretend_ to care.

But, the other side to that is that expecting people to care while you don't care enough about their welfare to make sure they get paid adequately and get adequate time off, etc. is just incredibly broken. It is a horrible form of hypocrisy that has little hope of failing to become abusive.

This is often a gendered issue. Women often do "caring" work and then no one wants to pay them.

On the one hand, I would like to see more marketplaces with 1099 employees that actually work well. On the other hand, I have trouble feeling like this was not an exploitative and ugly model. Why didn't you just go take care of your grandmother yourself instead of creating an entire business to avoid having to do the caring work she required?

Caring about money above all else makes for a poor boss. Or relative.

</comment><comment><USER30> As somebody with an interest in the space I appreciated the honest breakdown of the challenges and failures, 100% agree that this is a tough market.

But this part stood out:

"We were charging clients 30–40% less than industry average, and we were paying caregivers 25% higher than industry average. Both sides were winning."

Both sides were winning at the expense of Homehero's investors and the viability of the business model.

It is damn easy to grab market share in nearly any price-sensitive marketplace by underpricing service or over-pricing HR but it will ALWAYS ALWAYS catch you.

And while the W2 math / wage wouldn't be completely solve by bringing pricing to parity, it certainly would have had a huge impact and maybe provided enough runway to drive the scale efficiency.

</comment><comment><USER31> So basically they shut down because the law was forcing their 'employees' or whatever to get paid properly and they could no longer extract surplus value. Sounds like a good thing :)

Maybe if they really wanted to fix things they'd do it as a non-profit.

</comment><comment><USER32> What added benefit did homehero add to justify their costs? Either way the majority of people who work in this industry do not get paid a lot for what they do. It is hard to argue that they should get paid less to support the middle men

</comment><comment><USER33> I am intrigued by all the messages pointing out that the business was predicate on unfairly low payments to workers, and when that problem was rectified, their business model stopped working.

What intrigues me is that the common, tired narrative I see on this topic (from nerd friend on FB, typically) is more of a Libertarian/Ayn Rand oriented "the government shut down people who had had the freedom to work below a living wage, as should be their choice."

As it happens I disagree with that libertarian view, but even if I didn't, I'm glad to see a more complex understanding of business models and sympathy for the staff.

</comment><comment><USER34> I know this is supposed be about unnecessary regulation killing a company that was bringing wins to both homeowners and providers, but... am I reading this right:

"By the Summer of 2015, we had onboarded over 1,200 Heroes, provided care to a few hundred clients ... In June 2015, we raised a $20 million Series A, bringing total funding to $23 million."

So two years and $3 million dollars after they launched, they had only "provided care to few hundred clients". And using those metrics they somehow raised another $20 million dollars?

It seems like they had other problems then a change in the regulatory landscape.

<comment><USER35> with 10 heroes per customer it must have been stellar service

<comment><USER36> Snark is so easy but thoughtful analysis is hard. Marketplace businesses necessitate having adequate supply and demand to keep both sides happy. Rarely can you scale them in lock step.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The supply of skilled, vetted labor exists at the higher regulated prices in most locations. The demand for the service exists in most locations at today's lower prices. Even squeezing out inefficiencies to lower costs and improve convenience/quality/flexibility/coverage, the only way this works is if wages are subsidized. Few people can afford a full time employee, let alone the 3+ needed for 24 in-home hour care.

</comment><comment><USER36> In case anyone is wondering what they're up to now:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14501081](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14501081) [https://blog.goharvey.com/homehero-rebrands-as-an- integrativ...](https://blog.goharvey.com/homehero-rebrands-as-an-integrative- medicine-company-called-harvey-742766b8dce0)

</comment><comment><USER38> Is there something new here? This is the same post that was posted here 3 months ago.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm going to try and address each of the "negative" impacts this person states of the DOL ruling

1.In a survey we conducted internally, the cost for live-in/24-hour care doubled from $250 to $550 per day average in Los Angeles, pushing the price above a skilled nursing facility on a per day basis.

At the rate he mentions of $250 per day, hourly wages would be $10.4 for 24/7 live in care giver. So he was paying less than minimum wage in California. Let's revise that number to meet the minimum wage. It comes to $360. That number of $550 is inaccurate. The correct number is $480 (8 hours of regular pay at $15 per hour if you are in California and 16 hours of $22.5 per hour) So in California the cost went up from 360 to 480. That's a 33% increase not the over 100% increase he states.

2.Families were forced to reduce caregiver hours or fire their agency completely (and go under the table).

This seems to suggest that families were ok with exploiting the care givers even if they had to go "under the table". What kind of care givers will take less than mandated by law? Ones that can be exploited because of their immigration status?

3\. Hundreds of thousands of caregivers who were unable or unwilling to be employed as W-2 workers were either removed from their families or let go by their domestic referral agency.

????what?? unable to be employed as W-2? why? Is it because they are not legally allowed to work in the country without a permit? Not willing to work as W-2?? I don't understand why someone would not want to work as a full time W-2. Are they trying to avoid paying taxes? Either ways this is a choice that the caregiver has to make. They would rather make $10.41 and hour than go to $15 or $22.5? Something doesn't smell right.

4\. Seniors struggled with "continuity of care" issues as agencies started rotating multiple caregivers in and out of houses throughout the day to avoid overtime costs. This had an especially negative impact on Alzheimer's and dementia patients.

I get this. I do. My grandmother was bedridden for 12 years and we had a live in caregiver and I know my grandmother would sometimes get confused and scared if we got a replacement when the caregiver was on vacation.

5.The additional rotations in shifts increased gas, parking and transportation costs and added a layer of complexity to scheduling.

This is a problem for the agency. This is where you can have your USP. Don't cry about it. Figure out a kick ass algorithm to reduce scheduling complexity.

6.Caregivers saw their working hours and income reduced, seniors weren't able to get the 24/7 care they needed, and home care agencies saw a significant a decline in revenue from live-ins.

Caregivers only saw a reduction in working hours and income because agencies didn't want to pay overtime and pass the cost down to the family.</comment>


Zen Writing Mode - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1379-zen-writing-mode

<comment><USER3> GitHub epitomizes a "culture of shipping" to me. They're slamming feature after feature out the door (multiple features in the same day sometimes - <USER2> today). I like BitBucket too but, man, I would not want to be competing against the GitHub team right now. They're just __prolific __.

<comment><USER4> I agree.

But I would also say they do have a rather largeish dev team: <https://github.com/about/team>. Like 50-80 devs maybe? Thats like 12-20 teams of four people each.

Plus they have some really productive people on their team, several people are/were core contribs to Rails.

I guess one would expect with that many high quality people that a decent amount of work would be getting done.

<comment><USER5> Our team makeup is almost entirely "devs" (I call them Engineers — people who design, build, and ship software). A lot closer to 120 than 80. However your estimates a pretty far off in terms of people who work on dotcom — that number is much closer to 15.

One of the more interesting sociological problems of software to me is this idea that more people equals faster movement. The only studies in this field prove the opposite, yet common opinion is simply that: more people equals more output. We've actually spent a great deal of effort _not_ growing our team lately, much of which has directly contributed to an increase in pace.

I would credit our pace far more to the organizational structures we've created within our company (ex: [http://tomayko.com/writings/adopt-an-open- source-process-con...](http://tomayko.com/writings/adopt-an-open-source- process-constraints)) than the size of our team.

<comment><USER6> What the other engineers work on? (Besides the enterprise version)

<comment><USER7> A few of the other projects that people are working on: GitHub for Mac, GitHub for Windows, libgit2, internal tools, ops, Gist, Git

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this is inspired by the fullscreen mode in Wordpress. That's a good thing. Now I wish other places would incorporate this. I'd love a zen mode in Gmail, for instance.

<comment><USER9> For gmail the new compose allows full screen mode which is very distraction free and clean UI. <http://i.imgur.com/jrqOfiQ.png>

<comment><USER10> I wasn't even aware this was a thing. Google's been busy updating their older stuff as of late- the new image search took me by surprise just earlier today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're writing an inline comment (in normal mode, not Zen mode) on a commit and accidentally hit escape, your whole comment is lost. I think the biggest improvement to comments github could make would be to not wipe out everything you've written if you hit escape. This feature will help a bit with this, as it given you an extra level before escape will destroy a comment.

<comment><USER12> On a related note, this plugin has been invaluable to me in the past: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form- recov...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form- recovery/loljledaigphbcpfhfmgopdkppkifgno?hl=en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a little funny that "Zen mode", absolute quietness on screen to focus the mind without any distractions at all, has a little, largely unnecessary widget on screen that you can keep clicking back and forth that lets you change the color scheme.

<comment><USER14> I think it would be funny if they replaced that icon with a yin-yang symbol :)

<comment><USER15> Why? Zen doesn't have anything to do with that symbol, IIRC.

<comment><USER14> Hm, interesting. <http://www.shaolin.org/zen/word-tao.html> I think I had been confused by some modern "Zen Yoga" which refers to yin and yang more extensively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Zen" doesn't mean "being in the zone"

Cool feature, though!

<comment><USER17> No.. but it does mean a state of quiet focus. (That's as far as I'm going to go with that - trying to define zen in a few words is hard, but that's a very rough translation.) How is minimizing distractions and emphasizing a simple workplace not zen?

<comment><USER18> Zen is also shit sticks, rotten vegetables, and screaming. It's Ikkyu's poem about how he hates incense, it's Ryokan playing ball with the village kids, it's Pai-chang refusing to eat, it's arduous meditation retreats, it's Seung Sahn surviving on pine needles, it's Bernie Glassman founding a bakery to give work to the unemployable, it's seeing into your own self-nature, it's the Rinzai master hitting you with a stick, it's the Gateless Gate, it's a rhinoceros horn, it's the family of the Buddha, it's the vow to save all sentient beings from suffering, it's "vast emptiness, nothing holy," it's arousing the spirit of great doubt, it's drinking coffee out of a thermos in a beat-up old car, it's getting laid (that's wisdom!), it's Kanzeon's all- pervading gaze of compassion, it's drinking wine and eating fish, it's a blown-out candle, it's a pebble in a bucket -- in short, it's not just elegant stuff for refined aesthetes.

"Joshu Roshi: It is very hard for me to comment on things like Japanese culture. I am Japanese. So things like chado (tea ceremony) and so on, these are things I almost cannot speak about because they are so much a part of my culture. My feeling is so deep. I could try to show you though.

"If you brought me a tea bowl, one of those fine, very very expensive tea bowls... You know that most of them have names? Like people's children or pets, they have names... If you brought me one of those tea bowls then I could show you my feeling. I would first have to drink some water. Yes, very much water. And then I would pick up the tea bowl and look at it from every angle. I would sit in seiza before it and admire it, how much it cost. And then I would piss in it. And then I would drink more and more water and piss in it again and again. I would have to drink the Pacific ocean and the Atlantic ocean to be able to truly show you my feelings about Japanese culture and what it has to do with Zen. [...]

"These army people and rich people, lords and ladies and emperors wanted to play with Zen. Some lazy monks played with them and painted pictures for them, taught them how to eat and drink tea. But the army people and the lazy monks made a big game out of tasting tea. They sat around making moon faces and doe eyes about "simplicity" in little tea huts. These tea huts were built especially for them to sit around like that. This cost a lot of money, being "simple" like that. [...]

"Zen arts without Zen study is just cultural junk."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wrote a short blog post [1] on what I found while trying out Github's new zen writing tool. Just using it was enlightening for me if you havn't tried it yet give it a go, or have a look at what I thought of it, then you'll want to give it a go?

      I realised that I wanted to be able to link to this.
      Not the main github page of my code repository (although I will want to do that too
      of course) but to this markdown rendered zen mode view of what I want to show them.
      be that code or prose.

Over all I think it's great and have tried to explain my thoughts more fully in the link provided.

[1]: [https://github.com/christopherdebeer/zen/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/christopherdebeer/zen/blob/master/README.md)

<comment><USER20> thanks for the mention, and yes, it's definitely quite cynical :)

That said, I'm still trying to figure out what's so enjoyable about it. What about it is "enlightening" or makes you go "warm and fuzzy inside?" Basically, what differentiates this from using a full screen window in your text editor? Is it the contrast of colors? Is it because it's on the web? I wonder if I'm not using github to its full potential since I don't get it. Any insight to process or use cases other than how it makes you feel (I agree, it looks pretty, I guess) would be really appreciated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Submitted to <http://theworsthorse.com/category/dharma-burger/>

</comment><comment><USER22> I'd like to see this applied to gists as well.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I am a bit disappointed that this is not supported by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is excellent. I wonder if they can open source it so I could use it on my sites :)

<comment><USER20> Open sourced: <https://gist.github.com/4627220>

<comment><USER22> That made me laugh!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Would be nice to have it in fixed when you're editing code. But, then again, if you're using it for editing code, you might need syntax highlighting as well.

Man, my old man's generation probably thinks we're all candy asses.

</comment><comment><USER26> How long before they offer full blown IDE? Something like Cloud9 IDE could be quite easily integrated - <https://c9.io/>

</comment><comment><USER27> Are there any plans to add a keyboard shortcut for this?

<comment><USER28> You can toggle zen mode with cmd/ctrl + shift + L :)

<comment><USER27> Nice, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This news worthy?

</comment><comment><USER30> Finally, this was one of the most wanted features for me. Congrats to the team for the amazing work.

<comment><USER20> Out of pure curiosity, what use do you have for this? I can't wrap my head around this being anything more than a shiny new thing. It doesn't have syntax highlighting, doesn't have keyboard shortcuts, and therefore seems to be worthless for anything other than markdown editing (for which _I_ would rather just use my text editor).

<comment><USER30> Initially, i thought it had shortcuts and syntax highlighting. Anyway, i don't think it will be too long before they will add these features. But it's true, now is kind of useless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cool! What's the keyboard shortcut to indicate "Exit Zen mode" after I am done writing?

<comment><USER28> cmd/ctrl + shift + L will toggle both in and out of Zen Mode. Also pressing escape works for leaving Zen Mode too :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just found it by accident... "Oh my god!" ;)

</comment><comment><USER33> Wonderful. I'll be able to finish my books more easily with this feature.</comment>


Proof that HN users are helpful and encourage newcomers - <AUTHOR>

Being a regular HN reader, I often see people criticizing the quality of comments on HN.
While I too have experienced such negative feedback few times, I still knew there were plenty of positive-minded people here who are ready to help others.
So when I read the replies to this thread : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5198352 , I was glad to see so many HN users coming up with really helpful tips and positive responses.
I think anyone who criticizes HN everytime they get a negative feedback should check the replies in that thread. <comment><USER2> I don't think HN is negative at all. If it were, I wouldn't be here. I do think that there are too many people here who think too highly of themselves. This leads to insecurity and bashing others. I don't pay attention to it, though. Too many great things here to even waste a second on that. Sometimes, when the thread does turn into a negative train, I try and break it off.

<comment><AUTHOR> I too think people here are friendly and helpful, if you really ask for solutions politely. But, sometimes, I see people criticizing the HN community and that's why I shared this link which shows the good-natured side of HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clickety-click: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5198352></comment>


Is W16 Batch already closed? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys,
I was just wondering, is W16 batch closed? I am curious to know what kind of startups got in. <comment><USER2> Pretty sure interviews wrapped a few weeks ago. As usual you won't know who got in until the companies choose to announce it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked that because we applied late (one week after the dead line), and we have not received an answer yet. So, we were wondering if there was still some chance to get in.</comment></comment>


Apple: The organizational Rorschach - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3536-apple-the-organizational-rorschach

<comment><USER2> I don't really understand what this article is saying or if there's any point to it. It reads like a lot of overly grandiose back-patting with very little substance.

How is the iOS7 redesign different to that of Android and Windows Phone redesigns? Is it just so awe-inspiring and amazing because Apple did it?

I thought people were starting to get past having a verbal orgasm every time Apple did anything and were instead ready to treat them like any other company. I guess we're not quite there yet.

<comment><USER3>
      > How is the iOS7 redesign different to that of Android
      > and Windows Phone redesigns?

Which specific redesigns are you talking about? As for iOS 7 redesign, it is interesting, because it goes deep. Apple changes the way it thinks (and iOS devs should think) about the UI and the application contents. Content now receives the most prominent position and UI chrome goes into background. Apple also promotes the "depth" (anyone calling iOS redesign "flat" has no idea that they is talking about and is not worth listening). With the concept of depth interaction and navigation patterns will also change. Make no mistake, this redesign is not superficial and it will bring a lot of interesting things in the future.

<comment><USER2> Well the Windows Phone redesign (Windows Phone 7 & 8) was equally significant, if not more so, as a design direction change for Microsoft. And there are certainly similarities between WP7/8 and iOS7.

Android perhaps less significant as that has been a set of gradual changes, but the actual design language in the latest version of Android is starkly different to the first release.

<comment><USER3> The new look of Microsoft mobile OS (whatever they do call that UI now) received a lot of attention too.

<comment><USER2> Oh no doubt, it just didn't generate anywhere near the same amount of very vocal crymaxing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How apple did it: They copied what Microsoft had done, exactly like Samsung copied them, and Apple previously copied (poorly) what Google had done with Maps.

I say this not in spite but in awe of what Apple is really good at. They are good at copying things but then doing such an amazing job of presenting their copy that you, the elite of the industry, think that they invented it.

They've been doing this since they copied the Xerox interface and I've always been in awe of it.

<comment><USER5> I don't see the great similarities between iOS 7 and any microsoft interfaces. Can you say more about which product they "copied" and what design features specifically make you think that?

<comment><AUTHOR> You must be joking - [http://chris.millr.org/ios-7-looks-familiar-cant-quite- put-m...](http://chris.millr.org/ios-7-looks-familiar-cant-quite-put-my- finger-on-it/)

<comment><USER6> To build on gtcameron:

The call comparison is bad -- the first one is when the phone is "unlocked" and the "new" one is when the phone is in a locked state. Also, the previous version would show a picture if you had a picture associated to the contact.

And, if anything, with weather, and in general iOS was the first mobile OS which allowed you to horizontally scroll through screens -- I feel that that is the bigger "design" element stolen than a particular font/color choice.

Let's not forget about the pinch to zoom, etc.

Lesson here? Everyone borrows from each other. But I don't think the examples here are that damning. I think iOS borrowed much more from android than WP7/8\. (Look at the modal dialogs -- other than rounded corners, they're nearly identical to Android's)

AND Chris Miller got his dates wrong -- the multitasking in windows phone and iOS was stolen from WebOS -- which came out in 2009. Not 2011.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Prof Bob Sutton at Stanford made a similar point about Steve Jobs last year: [http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/07/wired- story-w...](http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/07/wired-story-wraps- with-my-argument-that-steve-jobs-is-like-a-rorschach-test.html)

<comment><USER8> That's one of the most interesting idea i've read about apple and steve jobs in a long time. I wonder if any management consultant start brainstorms with "why do you think Apple made it to the top ?".

Plus, with the strong duality between Apple public image (the cool, artistic oriented company) and steve jobs internal (supposed) behavior, that gives plenty of room for people to project their own frustrations :)))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Whether you happened to like the final product

And then the rest of the post assumes you like the final product.

</comment><comment><USER10> Instead of saying it again, I'll just link to my original comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5869340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5869340)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you want to see a really bold redesign, look at the transition from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone.

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/8/4408756/microsoft-metro- des...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/8/4408756/microsoft-metro-design- concepts-windows-mobile-windows-phone)

The Apple homescreen still looks like this from more than 20 years ago, but now with garish and fluorescent colored icons.

[http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/encyclopedia_images/_PRG...](http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/encyclopedia_images/_PRGMGR.GIF)

>marveling at the vision, drive, and sheer determination to pull it off.

I think this statement and the whole article better applied to WP7 rather than iOS7.

I think there is some major RDF at play here.

[http://disinfo.com/2011/06/apple-products-trigger-the- same-p...](http://disinfo.com/2011/06/apple-products-trigger-the-same-parts- of-the-brain-as-religion/)

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20064577-71.html](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20064577-71.html)

<comment><USER12> Agreed. Metro is not a step I had expected MS to take. The first few iterations in that video were more along the lines of what I had expected from MS. You could probably argue that they took "flat design" too far, but you can't accuse them of not taking any bold risks.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What cool domain names do you have for sale? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I have <http://www.invisibleobama.com> for sale. I'm sure someone with the right attitude could monetize it well since a similarly named twitter account has over 60K+ followers on twitter (@invisibleobama, which i don't own).

If anyone is interested, comment here and i'll get in touch. I'm not asking much.

</comment><comment><USER3> dialcloud.com (cloud, voip, sms)

localbux.com (SoLoMo, barter, deals)

blinkbot.com (generic)

busypad.com (tablet or saas application)

cylindr.com (database related)

dronegear.com (the drones are coming!)

peerworlds.com (social, gaming)

whenup.com (events)

xlsquid.com (generic)

zapfacts.com (informational)

<comment><USER4> How much for dialcloud.com? Couldn't find any contact info in your profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> GameDevelopers.com In theory, I'd like to do something productive with it, but in practice I wouldn't mind a big check to fund my current startup instead.

</comment><comment><USER6> ThingsInFive.com Probably i will develop some kind of e commerce store on it

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.wecute.com>

</comment><comment><USER8> independentlabel.org and schoolofprogramming.com/net/org

I plan on developing both but if anyone's interested, I can be bought :)

</comment><comment><USER9> dr.do, play.do, gtd.do, docs.do, go2.do

</comment><comment><USER10> startupsspace.com tweetius.com pikty.com angelbuzz.com DVDBrain.com DuckTheme.com FortGrid.com Brightype.com

</comment><comment><USER11> swapsend.com (for a drop send type site? also have swopsend.com)

designdown.com

</comment><comment><USER12> imhungryandihavenobacon.com

</comment><comment><USER13> Hiiire.com

Lyricaly.com

</comment><comment><USER14> tractab.com (Receipt/Invoice/Credit Card Billing Management)

</comment><comment><USER15> igoslow.com blastafaria.com expediway.com seosoap.com

</comment><comment><USER16> sharepixel.me getdrops.com digix.me digixcard.com

</comment><comment><USER17> Screwclothing.com

</comment><comment><USER18> seedfloat.com, odlephia.com, korzu.com

</comment><comment><USER19> alert.ly, ilike.it and seedround.co.uk

</comment><comment><USER20> tcotu.com (The Center of the Universe)

</comment><comment><USER21> paddr.com (Pad Dr - housing related)

</comment><comment><USER22> opticks.com, illbeinmybunk.com

</comment><comment><USER23> NeverSayBye.com Streetwits.com URGud.com DrDoubt.com

</comment><comment><USER24> quickbite.in

guzloo.com

</comment><comment><USER25> FAV.ASIA

</comment><comment><USER26> regg.ae

</comment><comment><USER27> wittybirds.com

</comment><comment><USER28> independent.fm

</comment><comment><USER29> startupar.com

</comment><comment><USER30> driverbug.com

</comment><comment><USER31> mankhool.com

</comment><comment><USER32> notesure.com

</comment><comment><USER33> lustomer.com

</comment><comment><USER34> debugger.co

</comment><comment><USER31> geosear.ch

</comment><comment><USER35> vpses.net

</comment><comment><USER36> setu.ps</comment>


Rapid MVP Standards – Tips to accelerate your startup hacking - <AUTHOR> http://niftylettuce.com/rapid-mvp-standards/ <comment><USER2> \- "SSL": use lets-encrypt, save 11$/yr. (there were other gratis CAs before that).

\- "must use Mac or Ubuntu": what?

\- "must use vim (with as many plugins as possibly)": what? Try a good IDE, like the ones from JetBrains, and you'll be amazed how much it does for you. Aren't you tired of doing refactorings like renaming variables with search/replace? (It even has an _excellent_ VIM emulation, and I'm a heavy vim (real vim) user.)

\- EV SSL cert: dubious advantages

\- fail2ban, non-standard SSH port: Just disable password logins instead. fail2ban isn't all that useful _for SSH_. Non-standard SSH ports will keep your logs clean, but thats it.

\- root login: just use "PermitRootLogin without-password" (prevents password login, allows ssh key login) and you're good. A modern Debian does this by default. "SSH access only"? What the hell are you talking about?

I stopped reading shortly after (80% due to lack of time, 20% lack of interest).

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the idea, but a little over perscriptive :p

"Developers must use vim (with as many plugins as possible) - no other IDE's should be allowed (a developer's finger muscle memory is critical to fast- paced coding – point-and-click is simply wrong and not optimal for productivity). Atom may be used, however plugins are necessity."

</comment><comment><USER4> This is not a Show HN. Please read the rules:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><USER5> I'm a bit confused. I would characterize this as documentation which can't really be "tried out". From the rules:

> For example, blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, > so they don't count as Show HNs.

It's hosted on Github but I don't think that in and of itself should put it in the Show HN category. Do you think it belongs in Show HN because it's self promotional?

Thoughts?

<comment><AUTHOR> I had posted stuff in the past that got to the front page and it was pretty much the same sort of thing - hosted on GitHub, forkable, starrable. I don't see what the rule is behind not being able to prefix something you made that you want to show HN as a Show HN. Oh well.

<comment><USER6> Because otherwise the category would be too broad to be interesting. You and I just made comments but they're obviously not 'Show HN'. It has to be something people can try that has (figurative) moving parts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I'm 16, and I made a thing - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/orzogen/stor.js I wrote a lightweight library that eases the use of localStorage. I'd be interested in your opinions and feedback.<p>(Apologies for the absurd title. I was attempting to make a commentary on the superfluity of specifying one's age in a title.) <comment><USER2> Please put what the thing is in the title.</comment>


Flight mode on - <AUTHOR> http://christianheilmann.com/2014/06/09/flight-mode-on/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Instead of commenting and giving feedback we like, share and +1."

And yet the article has a "Share on Twitter" button but no way to comment.</comment>


U.S. Air Force grounds F-35 fighters over cooling line problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lockheed-f35-grounded-idUSKCN11M26K?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=morefromreuters <comment><USER2> A flaw in the F35 will ground the USAF, USMC, US Navy, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the West's two most-capable air powers. That will leave... France to defend Freedom.

</comment><comment><USER3> The planes will be obsolete within two decades in almost all scenarios except against alqeada. They're already obsolete against Russian missiles and radar defense and soon against Chinese defenses.

I'd diminish orders on these flying pigs and wait for the Japanese stealth scout planes to finish prototype with their better designed and maintenance friendly framework.

<comment><USER4> It's easy to make a paper plane and claim it is better.

It is far harder to make hundreds of superior air-war machines with extremely advanced capabilities.

That being said, I think the design is a mistake and we should go back to not trying to make everything a multi-role plane - a plane with one, maybe two, mission profiles.</comment></comment>


Re-designing the workplace by getting rid of meetings and managers - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2015/01/21/re-designing-the-workplace-by-getting-rid-of-meetings-managers/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Jason Fried is a software entrepreneur and the founder & CEO of a company called Basecamp. He's spent a lot of time thinking about the workplace."

"Teresa Amabile has spent the past three decades looking deep into the hearts and minds of people at work. She's a psychologist and professor at Harvard Business School, and the author of several books on work."</comment>


Hot Capillary Action (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://cocktailpartyphysics.com/hot-capillary-a/ <comment><USER2> Is this article about PornTube?</comment>


Why VPs Should Care About Engineer Burnout - <AUTHOR> https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/why-vps-should-care-engineer-burnout/ <comment><USER2> Engineers don't burn out because of "alerts [aren't] in a single place," but I don't blame PagerDuty for trying to say so.

</comment><comment><USER3> That sales pitch was "subtle"</comment>


Twitter uses BitTorrent to push code updates. 40min  12sec - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.twitter.com/search?updated-max=2010-07-21T16%3A22%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

<comment><USER2> The URL should be corrected to [http://engineering.twitter.com/2010/07/murder- fast-datacente...](http://engineering.twitter.com/2010/07/murder-fast- datacenter-code-deploys.html)</comment>


I don't do deadlines - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.perl.org/users/shawnhcorey/2010/08/i-dont-do-deadlines.html

<comment><USER2> Not doing deadlines can cause Perl 6 to take over ten years to ship.</comment>


Apple investigating flat 'key-less' keyboard using acoustic cues - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/27/apple_investigating_flat_key_less_keyboard_using_acoustic_cues.html <comment><USER2> I see two problems regarding the adoption of this device:

1) Non adapt for touch typists. In my opinion it would be very hard to find the home row without raised dots and the feeling of real keys.

2) Can increase the effect of repetitive strain injury (RSI). Hitting an hard surface isn't the same thing that hitting keyboard keys.</comment>


Running a Hackerspace - <AUTHOR> https://www.roussos.cc/2016/05/27/running-a-hackerspace/ <comment><USER2> I have one of the biggest hackerspaces in Germany right around the corner, but I don't go there often.

People there are too socially underdeveloped. These constant racist remarks, awkward interactions and hitting on women is too much for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope that isn't one of the CCC hackerspaces...

<comment><USER2> No.

I visited the c-base in Berlin and it was a bit different.

But Berlin and its people is different than the rest of Germany anyway haha</comment></comment></comment>


Scrape Any Website/Service/API with a Single SQL Select Statement - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mikeptweet/scrape-any-website-service-api-with-a-single-sql-select-statement-8d60be1e9a49#.b51yft50f <comment><USER2> It would be a useful if one could use this in conjunction with cheerio to process the whole thing in nodejs instead of requiring to inject the alasql js into the page.</comment>


Firefox debuts new developer toolbar - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/10/09/firefox-debuts-new-developer-toolbar/

<comment><USER2> Lately Firefox started looking more atractive again. Mostly because of Chrome's feature creep. But probably I'm just overthinking it.

<comment><USER3> > Mostly because of Chrome's feature creep.

I think I'm actually quite sensitive to that, but haven't felt about Chrome that way yet. Could you explain what features you mean in particular?

<comment><USER4> Some things Chrome includes that other browsers do not: Pepper, Native Client, Chrome Web Store, WebSQL (Safari might have that one too), a native PDF viewer, SwiftShader, etc.

(People of course disagree on which of those are bad and which are good.)

<comment><USER5> Isn't WebSQL supposed to be replaced by IndexedDB?(which FF has btw)

<comment><USER4> Yes. Google hasn't removed it yet though (apparently some Google properties use it, so there is a conflict of interest here with web standards).

<comment><USER5> Of course, web standards don't oblige browsers to not have features that aren't in the standard (it would be a harsh world if they did!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who downscales a screencast to 480p before uploading to YouTube? It would be a much better demo to watch if they hadn't.

<comment><USER7> can't read what he's typing indeed

<comment><USER8> Be sure to watch in 480p, not 360p. I can make out what he's typing, though it is a bit blurry. Plus, if you only care about the commands, he always mentions them - just not all of the parameters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you have a HiDPI display (ips or retina mac), Jonathon Kew's patchset to add this feature to Firefox has landed in the Aurora branch.

[http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates...](http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest- mozilla-aurora/)

There are 18a2 builds in there, I'm using it now! However, I haven't seen it mentioned on the main aurora release page, so proceed with caution.

<comment><USER10> Firefox's lack of HiDPI support was _killing_ my eyes, but I've been using Nightly builds and they look great. The only problem I see is that Flash plugins get confused about screen sizes (so YouTube has tiny control buttons).

<comment><USER9> The plugin support hasn't bothered me yet, and it's almost surprising.

The amount of flash I use on a daily basis is so incredibly minimal these days. I've started using the built in plugin blocking with firefox. The only time I really turn it on is for Netflix and the occasional video that isn't part of the HTML5 beta on youtube is about it.

( not that any of this is an excuse to not fix the bug :P )

<comment><USER11> As Google Chromes GWT Developer plugin is noticeably slower (and stopped working altogether) than that of Firefox's, having to use non-retina supported browser for GWT development is annoying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a guy who writes software who doesn't write much html (because web is hard) I can't help but feel that having all these devtools built in by default, while nice for developers, seems silly to have wasting space on the hard drives of millions of users. They will never use the source viewers, live editing, page heuristics, etc, and it reeks of feature creep to me, and one product trying to be too many things at once.

<comment><USER13> It may be a waste of space, yes, but space is _cheap_.

Also, it is extremely valuable to have these tools on every browser I happen to use. I can see what's wrong with my website--or anybody's website--at any computer. If you go to some page and something doesn't work, I can just open the developer tools on your browser and try to sort it out.

So while most people don't need these tools most of the time, they can still be useful once in a while and have a negligible cost.

<comment><USER14> Some stats: ~350 million users[1] ~17Mb download[2]

Lets assume a full 25% is dev tools (I think its likely to be much less), so 4.25Mb per user. That's 1418Tb, or just under 500 3Tb disks. Considering that's spread across 350 _million_ users, I think that's not too much at all, and its probably much less.

[1][https://wiki.mozilla.org/images/e/ed/Analyst_report_Q1_2010....](https://wiki.mozilla.org/images/e/ed/Analyst_report_Q1_2010.pdf) [2]<http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Favorite feature of the dev toolbar: it has a "screenshot" command to dump a PNG of either the entire page or a specific block.

<comment><USER16> Is this one better than the extensions that already existed for taking screenshots?

<comment><USER17> Which extension are your referencing. I'm currently using Page Saver but previously used Awesome Screenshot Plus until they started intercepting pages and spamming adverts to them by default. Having it in-browser is good.

Also I've not seen a screenshot tool that allowed an id to be specified before as someone said this will/does.

<comment><USER18> I use this: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pixlr- grabber...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pixlr-grabber/)

Allows you to capture a defined region or the entire page, and upload / edit it online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Shift + F2 opens the command line but pressing Shift +F2 again doesn't close it. That's.....unexpected (and annoying).

<comment><USER10> Works for me with Nightly 19 on OS X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's really nice to see an approach that's different not just in UI but in concept. Smart.

</comment><comment><USER21> That's great! It's much better than the prev Firefox dev toolbar. I wonder if people will take the time to learn the Firefox specific console commands?

</comment><comment><USER22> I might be more impressed if I didn't use FireBug.

<comment><USER23> What do you mean? It doesn't use Firebug at all.

<comment><USER24> He means that Firebug is better than this new toolbar in his opinion.

<comment><USER23> Oh, I misread that. Well, apples and oranges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Reminds me of: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox)>

Tying this down to the specific domain of web development will probably help its longevity though.

I'm very excited about the add-your-own feature and hope it's similar.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm really pleased to see that Mozilla is finally stepping up to the plate and trying to bring web developers back into the fold that have been enjoying the much better Webkit dev tools. I hope they continue with this momentum.

</comment><comment><USER27> The shortcut to bring it up (fn+shift+f2) is pretty unwieldy on the Mac keyboard.

Anyone have any idea on how to change the shortcut? No luck in about:config.

<comment><USER28> You can also get at the menubar through the keyboard:

alt-T W v

which looks a little unwieldy, except you don't have to move from the home keys, and I find it much easier to type than

hands up, look for fn, left middle to shift and left index to fn, right middle float up and over to f2

You can muscle memory a short menubar keyboard sequence pretty quickly if you use it enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> wonder if it will play nice with pentadactyl or vimperator or any other of the keyboard based browsing add-ons.

Looks good though.

<comment><USER27> Plays nicely. Just pops you into insert-mode when you bring up the devbar and pops you back into normal when you exit.

<comment><USER5> Would be cool if Vimperator integrated it though! E.g., :! could give you access within the Vimp command line itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Tried the CSS inspector in Aurora. As of today, there is still no keyboard nudge support (Click on the value of a CSS rule and then press keyboard up / down keys to adjust it +1 / -1).

Sticking with Firebug until this feature is added.

</comment><comment><USER31> If Firefox had a GUI that didn't rely on the window manager's decorations (a la chrome), I would switch in a heartbeat.

As it stands, using Firefox on Linux (Openbox) feels like a huge step back from Chrome.

<comment><USER32> That's interesting. Chrome's lack-of-integration with the rest of my desktop is one of the things that keeps me away.

<comment><USER31> On Linux, Chrome has an option to use system decorations. Does it lack that option on other systems?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Big congrats to the Mozilla team.

Lately they haven't stopped releasing new great things: Persona, lljs, WebPlatform (co-participation), now this developer command bar, ... sth else? Impressive.

</comment><comment><USER34> Ah, do they finally have a debugger again?

<comment><USER35> Yes, since Firefox 15.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Jesus christ, Firefox is the definition of "over designed"</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an ORM as good as SQLAlchemy for TypeScript yet? - <AUTHOR> I've seen TypeORM, slonik, sequelize-typescript. TypeORM seems the most widely used, but looks a little Java-like and has over 1800 open issues. SQLAlchemy has a tenth as many.<p>Has anyone used a SQL library with TS and found it to be highly robust, powerful, ergonomic, and well-typed? <comment><USER2> ORMs are something the Node community has never figured out, even almost ten years later.

<comment><USER3> I have come across several but used none (not really a Node developer so no reason to try any). Are they all just not up to snuff or something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, no. TypeORM is as good as it gets in Nodejs ecosystem. Also if you choose it, read this pinned issue first: [https://github.com/typeorm/typeorm/issues/3267](https://github.com/typeorm/typeorm/issues/3267)

</comment><comment><USER5> Have you tried Prisma?</comment>


Ask HN: Discussion on fixing internal enterprise communications - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently contracted at a medium size enterprise (100 developers, 500 other staff). Communication (within the tech team) seems to happen mainly through email (although there is a sharepoint, a yammer) and old knowledge is found by a process of of person to person investigative archaeology - the online tooling doesn't get used.
The process is both disheartening, and slows down and complicates delivery of software.
It doesn't seem that this is an issue being seriously tackled by management, (perhaps it's not actually a Real Problem, just one perceived by me!). Maybe having bought in Yammer and Sharepoint, they have 'lead the horse to water' already?
Has anyone encountered a good solution for these problems, or have any ideas? Do you have any 'nudge behaviour' style tips* for encouraging people to work with the existing tools? Is there a good startup idea waiting to tackle this problem, or is it just that the management haven't twigged to it as an issue? Discuss! :) <comment><USER2> Yes you've correctly identified a problem. It's sad that I have to "know a guy" to sometimes get stuff done.

Unfortunately, no one with purchasing power cares.

You can try promoting "social" and "collaboration", and you might get some sales out of that since those buzzwords are hot. However, you won't fundamentally change anything because ultimately someone bought your software to fluff up their annual review, and then it gets dropped like a hot rock after the coast is clear.

You're probably better off with IT self-service, it's a hot enterprise area right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> You make it sound like there's no software on earth that can fix internal communications in an appreciable way.

Do you think that with a combination of the right software and sufficient management willpower it could be done? e.g. MEMO: "ALL QUESTIONS TO OTHER STAFF MEMBERS MUST GO THROUGH THE INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE TOOL. THAT IS ALL."

I wonder if a tool unified with email could do it. It would be hard to get Outlook out of everyones' cold, dead hands though...

<comment><USER2> Heh, if I sound like that it's because I'm disillusioned with my experiences.

You can totally fix internal communications, but the employees have to own it. If the employees don't feel the desire to share the knowledge, it will never get done.

Sufficient management push _could_ get stuff done. But I've got an internal knowledge management tool as well (fully ITIL compliant!), and from the emails there's a bunch of people who will avoid the tool or make low quality knowledge articles.

Why not integrate with Outlook? That would be pretty badass, because as soon as someone wrote a plugin for Outlook with our ticket management system I dropped in like 3x as many tickets as I used to.</comment></comment></comment>


My Open Letter to the SEC - <AUTHOR> http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/11/open-letter-to-the-sec-about-ange-investors.html

<comment><USER2> So, I did some research and here is my understanding of why this rule is bad. The SEC requires any company that wants to sell shares to register with it. There are exceptions to this registration requirement. One of these being that a company is exempt if it sells shares to an "accredited investor".

The definition of "accredited investor" since 1982 has been someone with a net worth of $1 million or $200K annual income or $300K combined income with spouse. <http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm>

By changing/increasing the "accredited investor" threshold, presumably less people would be able to invest in startups that are not registered with the SEC. Hence this rule would lead to fewer angels. BTW, the change being proposed is that an investor cannot include his primary residence in calculating his net worth.

More history of the "accredited investor" rule can be found here - [http://webster.utahbar.org/barjournal/2010/11/the_evolution_...](http://webster.utahbar.org/barjournal/2010/11/the_evolution_and_future_of_th.html)

[EDIT] Here is a rationale for the existence of the "accredited investor" rule taken from the utahbar link above:

Since as early as the 1930s, regulators and courts have struggled with how to protect individual investors in private offerings of securities while still allowing sufficient investment in private offerings to sustain the growth of start-up and other young companies – companies which have historically been responsible for much of the job growth in the United States.

Eventually, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") came up with the idea of "accredited investors." Accredited investors are individuals or other entities that have sufficient wealth not to need the protection of federal and state securities laws to the same extent as non-accredited investors.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the interesting analysis and link. It seems that the issues are:

      * SEC registration is meant to protect investors.

      * SEC registration is so expensive only large corporations can
        afford it.

      * Companies can be exempt from the SEC registration requirement if
        everyone who purchases their securities meets certain minimum
        net worth or income requirements (this does not apply to
        35 purchasers, which apparently need meet no minimum standard
        at all).  Purchasers who meet these minimum requirements
        are called "accredited investors".

      * The justification for allowing the accredited investment
        exemption seems to be a desire to allow investment while at
        the same time recognizing that certain well-off investors don't
        need the protection SEC registration offers.

      * The threshold for being an accredited investor is being raised.

My own responses and concerns about all this are:

      * Is it really true that SEC registration is so expensive that
        only large corporations can afford it?  Just how expensive is
        it?  Why is it so expensive?  Can the expense be made any more
        affordable for smaller companies?

      * What rationale is being used to justify setting the threshold
        for being an "accredited investor" at any level whatsoever?
        What makes investors worth $1 million any more able to do
        without the protection provided by SEC registration any more
        than an investor who is worth only $500,000?  Given what we've
        seen in the recent financial crisis (where even the wealthiest
        investors suffered or even went bankrupt), isn't it clear that
        even wealthy investors need more protection?

      * Does SEC registration of any given corporation really only
        protect the direct investors in that corporation?  Or does SEC
        registration benefit society and the economy as a whole?
        Perhaps we should be thinking of ways to make more corporations
        subject to SEC registration, not less.  If this can be done in a
        way that smaller corporations can afford, why not?

<comment><AUTHOR> Dude, when you're 3 dudes living in an apartment with no money, any govt regulation is painful and harmful to progress.

<comment><USER3> How about regulations that keep you from doing stupid or illegal things or defrauding the people who invest in your company?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> This post is pretty weak. Neither metmorphblog nor the lawblog explain what this rule means. They both declare it as bad. But why?

So what if 'accredited investor threshold' is raised? Will angels not get to make investments? Will they have to pay higher taxes? What is the intent behind raising this threshold? Will it stop someone from starting a ponzi scheme?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, the proposed change to rule is not clearly stated. Simply, there is an unspecified change to the rules on the agenda.

"§413: Propose rules to revise the "accredited investor" standard"

[http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/dfactivity- upcoming....](http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/dfactivity- upcoming.shtml#01-03-11)</comment></comment>


Amazon.com and The Atlantic Will Sell Short Stories on the Kindle - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/books/05fiction.html

<comment><USER2> $3.99 each. Gonna have to lower that price point a little. Too many people with their hands in the till.

<comment><USER3> Agree...but it strikes me that there's an opportunity here for lovers of genre fiction. Mystery and Sci-fi magazines used to provide both a platform and a means of earning a living for new authors, but in recent years readership of literary periodicals has fallen.

I would not pay $3.99 for a novella (and I'm old-fashioned enough to prefer paper when it comes to reading for pleasure) but I might consider $5 once every month or two for a bunch of short stories.</comment></comment>


American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/american-kids-would-much-rather-be-youtubers-than-astronauts/ <comment><USER2> One way to interpret the results is that kids have no real preferences and want to be what they're most exposed to. They watch videos, listen to music, watch sports, and go to school, hence athlete vlogger teacher musician. In the 50s everyone would have been talking about the space race.

<comment><USER3> This resonates but can also be viewed as testament to the rapid deterioration of American society on all fronts but most importantly in ethics and values.

One great movie that brilliantly captures the American pioneering spirit is "The Right Stuff" [1]. It is old movies like it that can quickly illustrate the magnitude of American decline. Compare and contrast the values projected back then with today's relentless materialism, cults of personality, money/status worship and a tendency to radically deconstruct everything towards a uniform egalitarian race to nothingness.

[1] [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/)</comment></comment>


Escher.py - Key/value db with its data - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/4280027 <comment><USER2> For the old people, before we had MySQL, this is how we used to have "guest book" on websites. With auto-updating Perl CGI scripts.

<comment><USER3> I remember being so proud of my little PERL message board scipt, nowadays I can't imagine how I thought it would work for as long as it did.

Shipping clearly flawed software beat doing things right... less than a day's effort and it ran from 1995 through 1998 without needing any maintenance.

I spat out thousands of files, the big problem was going into the directory and trying to make sense of it. We eventually migrated to MySQL out of concern about whether we would hit the directory size limits for number of files.

MySQL corrupted more than our file system back then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Even as a toy, that's hideous Python code.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. But I suppose it gets the job done.

(Disclaimer: Didn't check whether it actually gets the job done.)

<comment><USER4> _> I suppose it gets the job done_

Every time someone says that, Djikstra kills a javascript framework.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool. Might be useful for configuration files. It can be executed so it's possible to make it able to list all parameters, descriptions, default values, etc. Since it's valid python, it can be read by a python script. People can also open the file and modify the configuration themselves.

</comment><comment><USER7>
      "data = " + str(data),

should probably be

      "data = " + repr(data),

</comment><comment><USER8> Cute.</comment>


F# from your browser - <AUTHOR> http://test.tryfsharp.org/Create

<comment><USER2> This seems to depend on Silverlight and so doesn't work on my system. (Actually, I'm just guessing that it needs Silverlight--the page explaining why it doesn't work _also_ doesn't work. Either way, it doesn't work.)

You should check out OCaml on the browser[1]. This takes advantage of js_of_ocaml, which is a very good OCaml to JavaScript compiler. You can also try running OCaml with access to the browser apis[2], which is pretty cool.

[1]: <http://try.ocamlpro.com/>

[2]: <http://try.ocamlpro.com/js_of_ocaml/>

<comment><USER3> The reason the dependency exists is because silverlight includes the .net compiler and, in addition to literally executing the code on the client, is used for a lot of the IDE sugar, like Intellisense. Additionally, you don't just get the f# language here but also access to a lot of the standard .net libraries. So while I agree it's annoying that the dependency exists, it's not an arbitrary requirement to do accomplish something that could have easily been replicated in another technology

<comment><USER4> Sure, but what makes the whole "in a browser" genre interesting is that (usually) you don't need special dependencies to get started. If I need Silverlight and the whole .NET compiler, why not just tell me to download Visual F# Express Edition to get started?

<comment><USER5> Because silverlight takes all of 15 seconds to download and install, and Visual F# is an hour+ to install, plus a couple hundred megabytes of additional assets?

<comment><USER6> Complexity. Target achieved.

<comment><USER7> Well, it's not like the apt-get solution is a whole lot more elegant: [http://thecodedecanter.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/installing-m...](http://thecodedecanter.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/installing- monodevelop-3-with-fsharp-support-on-ubuntu/)

<comment><USER8> That's... not apt-get. Three commands that can be copy and pasted is about 10000x more elegant. In that it works in Linux and Siverlight doesn't.

<comment><USER7> In most cases Moonlight works just fine for my F# silverlight stuff. You should give it a go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Be sure to check out the content on the Learn pages [1], which present a structured introduction to various aspects of the language (as opposed to the blank slate of the Create page). The examples really show off what you can do with F#, even in the browser environment (type providers with IntelliSense, charting, etc.).

[1] <http://test.tryfsharp.org/Learn>

<comment><USER10> That's the first thing I did and that is what makes this an impressive offering. The smoothness of the introduction is very well done and you can easily see how it slowly introduces a novice, which you can easily skip as a more experienced dev because of how well it is structured. A difficult challenge which they've pulled off well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >Welcome to Try F#! Your system does not support the execution of F# code in the browser. >For additional help: <http://test.tryfsharp.org/Help>

Help doesn't do anything. Thanks?

<comment><USER7> That's the beta site and it seems to be down at the moment. Have you looked at <http://www.tryfsharp.org/Tutorials.aspx>

<comment><USER12> Chrome on Debian user here, that link actually provided a link to a moonlight installer for chrome (crx file), however chrome no longer allows downloaded extensions to be installed.

Just tried firefox (called Iceweasel in Debian), and moonlight installed ok, but I got this message:

// Due to differences between Silverlight and Moonlight, the Linux version of the // Try F# control is not fully functional at this time. // // We will make the Try F# control available on this page as soon as all issues // are resolved. Please check back later and thank you for your understanding. //

<comment><USER7> That is a shame. Thanks for putting the effort in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm interested in learning F# but can't get past the "Your system does not support the execution of F# code in the browser." Any other pretty painless way to try it? I've been messing with Haskell and like it a lot but it would be nice to have access to the .NET libraries when I wanted them.

<comment><USER7> You can run it in mono (it's part of the standard package now) or you can give it a go on tryfs.net once the load goes down.

If you're on windows, there's an addon for VS2012 Express Web Edition for F#: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/fsharpteam/archive/2012/09/12/announ...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/fsharpteam/archive/2012/09/12/announcing- the-release-of-f-tools-for-visual-studio-express-2012-for-web.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also cool, all of the samples on <http://fssnip.net> can be loaded into tryfsharp.org and tryfs.net with the click of a button.

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't help notice some similarity in name and motivation to <http://tryclj.com> .

<http://www.tryfsharp.org/Help> 404s for me. My browser "does not support the execution of F# code in the browser", probably because I don't have Silverlight.

I install Silverlight (for Chrome on OS X). "Could not load Silverlight Plug- In."

<comment><USER15> you may have missed it but sites like this have been around for a lot of time, so the similarity and motivation are obviously similar :)

TryRuby (which I believe was the first for a non-toy language, and the starter of the try* nomenclature) was put online somewhen in 2005 IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 2 new F# books

<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920024033.do>

<http://www.manning.com/petricek2/>

</comment><comment><USER17> That's a very interesting learning resource. I wish something similar came for Scala or Clojure (as opposed to tryclj, which does not have all those "Learn" pages).

<comment><USER16> Here's a monstrous list of online sandboxed REPLs, i think the first group, codepad, IDEone, etc can do scala and clojure but probably you'll want to go with one of the one click donwloads like Haskell platform, the typesafe installer or leiningen, unless they've somehow developed a miraculous classpath hell resolver.

[http://jkirchartz.com/2012/06/rocking-stackoverflow-sites- to...](http://jkirchartz.com/2012/06/rocking-stackoverflow-sites-to.html)

<http://joel.franusic.com/Online-REPs-and-REPLs>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Intellisense doesn't seem to work for me. Ctr-Space brings up the dialog which just contains "Loading..."

</comment><comment><USER19> F# really does look like an amazing language. I'll consider it seriously when someone ports it to the JVM.</comment>


Easing Functions Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> https://easings.net/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure why or how it came up with cubic-bezier(0.445, 0.05, 0.55, 0.95) for easeInOutSine.

A more accurate representation of this piece of sin(t) would be cubic- bezier((pi - 2)/pi, 0, 1 - (pi - 2)/pi, 1) which evaluates to cubic- bezier(0.3633802276324187, 0, 0.6366197723675813, 1). (round where necessary)

This way, the tangents at the start and end remain horizontal. This also matches the function (1 - cos (pi x)) / 2 with a root mean square error of only about 0.000224528.

If you want to optimize excessively (why not?), you can minimize this error to about 0.00013 with cubic-bezier(0.364212423249, 0, 0.635787576751, 1). However, there is no closed form for these values as you end up attempting to integrate the cosine of a cubic polynomial.</comment>


BigDataBorat - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/BigDataBorat

<comment><AUTHOR> Big Data Borat @BigDataBorat Man with 1 database know data consistent. Man with 2 database never sure. Man with 3 database brag about it on hacker news. #bigdata</comment>


Open Letter to Peter Schiff - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rxmk3/my_open_letter_to_peter_schiff_followup_from_the/

<comment><USER2> "In fact, this network is probably one of the most valuable and consequential technologies currently on the planet... The transmission of value and ownership has thus just been severed from the State, not by impotent voting, but by the technological achievement of man."</comment>


StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown - <AUTHOR> http://benweet.github.io/stackedit/# <comment><USER3> (Context: Using ChromeOS)

The biggest flaw I see in this (and in several alternatives suggested below) is that it doesn't support native browser spell check because it uses Ace (and in the case of alternatives, they do text rendering that isn't native and isn't detected as text). I use Markdown for taking outline based notes - <USER2> one of the biggest stopgaps is that I can spell check my work to make sure I'm not screwing up my own notes as I type during a lecture.

In that regard, the only thing I've found that meets this criteria isn't a Markdown editor, it's Writebox -- [https://write- box.appspot.com/](https://write-box.appspot.com/)

<comment><USER4> My favorite online markdown editor [https://draftin.com/](https://draftin.com/) seems to work fine with native spell check.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very slick. Nice touch adding the delay between scrolling and moving the other page. Your logo looks like StackOverflow's, is there a relationship between the two? Otherwise I'd consider changing it.

Also, the save/download buttons (the first thing I look for in an app like this) are hidden behind a sliding panel. Move them front and center!

<comment><USER6> I had the same question too. The footnote #1 states that >"StackEdit is a free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown, the Markdown library used by Stack Overflow and the other Stack Exchange sites."

<comment><USER5> Based on the same library that another website uses doesn't warrant the use of a similar logo though. It was confusing to the point of "Oh look, a StackOverflow button, I wonder if it posts to StackOverflow"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best M↓ editor I've used is Haroo Pad[1]. I like it because you don't need to visit a webpage to use it which makes it ideal for offline idea dumps while you're on a plane for example.

[1] - [http://pad.haroopress.com/](http://pad.haroopress.com/)

<comment><USER8> I've never seen that one, but it looks pretty similar to the one I use, Mou -- [http://mouapp.com/](http://mouapp.com/)

<comment><USER7> I actually started off with Mou, but I've found Haroo to work a bit better for my needs. It's got better shortcuts (although I don't need them) the interface is a bit nicer and it's got more customization. Plus since Haroo is built using node-webkit, it runs cross platform.

<comment><USER9> Much the same, here. For some reason the font rendering on my Ubuntu machine seems sub-par (only in the editor, the preview pane looks good). The Windows and Mac versions don't have that problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find it strange that the icon used is so similar to StackOverflow's if this isn't an app built by the same people.

<comment><USER11> I asked myself the same question. At first I thought it was some kind of editor using the Stack Overflow Markdown flavor. It's really confusing.

<comment><USER12> It is an editor using PageDown, the Stack Overflow Markdown flavor.

<comment><USER13> I still think it's a bit dodgy. If I used GitHub's form of Markdown for a similar project, I wouldn't think it acceptable to call it "MarkHub" and give it a logo of a Septocat in a black circle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What I want to see is an open source markdown editor that renders the preview as you type where you type (not side by side).

For an example check out [http://mangomarkdown.com/](http://mangomarkdown.com/) (which powers foldingtext).

There are a few projects that do this, but not open source, that I can find! It might not be that hard to change the current ones that go side by side to do this.

(I am planning to work on one, but have not gotten around to doing much, and will probably take a different approach to it than this)

<comment><USER15> Have you seen [http://prose.io/](http://prose.io/)?

Looks similar to mangomarkdown, and it's open source. I'm using it in a project I'm working on and loving it.

Edit: actually, I think I like the mango style even better. Didn't realize this before, but the markdown tags are hidden after you type - pretty neat. (My initial test was a few heading tags, which still display the '#' in the margin).

<comment><USER14> Oh, cool! I have heard of this, but I did not know they did the rendering like this. Thanks!

edit: Ya, I still like mongo and how they make the header kinda fade out, have support for checkboxes (well folding text does), and when you are on a unordered list and press enter it automatically makes a new one. Mango has just made a codemirror mode to handle this it looks like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nicely done! Throughout the day I'm very often jotting down notes in markdown and then pasting them into a Gist to share with someone.

The frustrating part is not seeing how it's going to be formatted while I'm actually taking the notes. This app could solve that problem. I'll give it a try this week.

Some questions/comments:

1\. What are you using for the popover tour that appears the first time someone visits the page?

2\. The logo looks _very_ much like the Stack Overflow logo[1]. Are you associated with that group? If not I'd consider changing it.

3\. I'm familiar with but haven't used Epic Editor[2] by Oscar Godson and friends[3]. Have you checked it out by any chance?

Again, great work and I'll be giving this a try over the next week or so.

[1] [http://blog.moovweb.com/content/uploads/2013/09/stackoverflo...](http://blog.moovweb.com/content/uploads/2013/09/stackoverflow- logo.png)

[2] [http://epiceditor.com/](http://epiceditor.com/)

[3] [http://epiceditor.com/#credits](http://epiceditor.com/#credits)

</comment><comment><USER17> Very well done!

Would love to see it integrated with Etherpad somehow so that several people could colaborate on the same document.

We're often using Etherpad to collect notes during meetings. Converting them to a nice formatting in real time would be nice for those who are only following the document.

Synchronization with ownclowd would be nice as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> I was searching for the best way to edit online content and Markdown was obvious choice. Until I saw what Medium has done. I believe that WYSIWYG is the only way. You still get emphasys on text but with no need to learn any kind of markup no matter how human readable it is.

On the other hand Medium's approach is tied to their visual style and design, it does not support many things I'd wish it would. Still, I'm rooting for WYSIWYG in the future.

[edit] Sorry, forgot to add that nevertheless this Markdown editor is impressive.

<comment><USER19> But the web is not WYSIWYG, so you're really just editing text in a bespoke 'format' layered on top. Fair enough if that works for you, but it's important to recognise this and understand the drawbacks.

<comment><USER18> I agree partially. For most people there is no need to see web as any particular format or markup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since we're dropping links here and there, here's the also free and open source Markdown editor I created. It's also minimalist, and unflavored: [http://markdown.pioul.fr/](http://markdown.pioul.fr/)

The source is on GitHub: [https://github.com/pioul/MinimalistOnlineMarkdownEditor](https://github.com/pioul/MinimalistOnlineMarkdownEditor)

</comment><comment><USER21> I quite like it, the UI is intuitive and functional.

Sort of related: Is there a library or editor that could be used to create both markup for the web as well as export to LaTeX syntax? My use case: Software documentation where I'd like to have both a Wiki as well as creating a professional looking PDF document (or even print it for the old fashioned folks). That sort of functionality would be worth paying for in my case.

<comment><USER22> pandoc

<comment><USER23> Also check out gitit ([http://gitit.net](http://gitit.net)), written by the same author as pandoc. It's a git-backed wiki that uses pandoc to let you write in a variety of formats. Markdown + latex for math works well for taking notes in a wiki format. The content is stored as flat files in the repo that you can just export as pdfs using pandoc if you wanted to.

<comment><USER22> After a few weeks of trying to get Github's gollum gem to do what I want, this might be what I've been looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Markdown needs nested ordered lists. I would like to convert legal documents to markdown, but I can't. For example:

1\. Item one

2\. Item two

        a. Subitem a

        b. Subitem b

<comment><USER25> isn't that an implementation issue? your example doesn't work indeed in the StackEdit link, but

1\. Item one

1\. Item two

       1. Subitem a

       1. Subitem b

does work, so that let me think that you just need to improve the parser to consider "a b c" as a valid ordered list, and maybe "i ii iii" at the same time?

(I replaced a, b and 2 by 1 to force the automatic numbering)

<comment><USER24> Yes, that would be nice if it parsed correctly. I need ordered lists that have capital letters, capital roman numerals, lowercase letters, numbers, and lowercase roman numerals.

<comment><USER26> In all legal documents we work with, "legal numbering" is like 126.96.36.199. Here's CSS for that:

[http://lane.net.nz/blog/dave/creating-legal-list- numbering-o...](http://lane.net.nz/blog/dave/creating-legal-list-numbering- only-using-css)

For your Digits, Roman Numerals, and Alpha numbering (mixed symbols), here's CSS for that:

[http://css.wikidot.com/cssnippet:easy- outline](http://css.wikidot.com/cssnippet:easy-outline)

Use Markdown to make your list's HTML, use CSS to style it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> We recently just launched a very early dev preview of our markdown editor. It integrates directly with github. I would love some feedback [https://alpha.banyan.co/](https://alpha.banyan.co/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm curious what are all the "Application Cache Progress event" showing up in the console? There's a different URL for each event but it doesn't seem to correspond to an actual HTTP request?

</comment><comment><USER29> Very cool and really well done. I really wished it would only write in a single spot on dropbox not the whole thing... I found the source and might change that in my own fork. Very very cool stuff!

</comment><comment><USER30> this arena is getting kind of interesting, what with all of the new tools being mounted, and the variations, in terms of interface, wysiwyg-ness, storage locations, online/offline wrinkles, auto-save-timer idiosyncrasies, and so on... plus, as a long-time observer of markdown, there are a lot of butts that are going to get bitten when people discover the inconsistencies and edge-cases that arise between the different flavors. so it's gonna be quite fascinating to see the shakeouts that'll happen.

-bowerbird

</comment><comment><USER31> This is good! I have been using stackoverflow's wmd which I host on heroku: [http://wmd.heroku.com](http://wmd.heroku.com)

</comment><comment><USER32> Ah, it's open. took me a while: [https://github.com/benweet/stackedit](https://github.com/benweet/stackedit)

</comment><comment><USER33> This is awesome! I've wanted something exactly like this for ages for publishing to my blog! You are my hero - at least for the night :p

</comment><comment><USER34> I just love the LateX support. I was actually just looking for something similar.

Great work, the editor is pretty impressing even without that feature.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is amazing.</comment>